Boland Cellar shines at SA Young Wine Show

Friday, 23 August, 2013
Boland Cellar
Boland Cellar impressed recently by receiving eight gold, nine silver and 16 bronze medals at the 2013 SA Young Wine Awards.  Boland also walked off with two class winner trophies for their unwooded Chenin Blanc and wooded Petit Verdot, which respectively won the Boeresake and Arnold Graue Trophies.
Gold medals were awarded to the wooded and un-wooded Chenin Blanc, the Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot/ Cabernet Franc blend, the Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz/Pinotage blend and the Shiraz.    The Chenin Blanc (wooded and un-wooded) as well as the Shiraz also won gold in 2012.

The SA Young Wine Show is by far South Africa’s largest and oldest competition for young wines and offers winemakers the ultimate opportunity to compare their choices of wine styles and production methods with those of their peers at an early stage.   A total of 2 060 wines from the eight wine regions were entered by 135 producers this year.  The wines were judged in seventeen different categories. 

“Our performance over the past couple of years has been very consistent, which is a good indication of the high quality wines produced by Boland Cellar across our range of wines,” says Boland winemaker Bernard Smuts.
He further explains that both the Paarl and SA Young Wine shows provide the ideal platform for testing new cultivars, which will ultimately be used in one of Boland Cellar’s popular blends.  “We are delighted to see that decades of sourcing ideal micro-climate regions for the production of quality vineyards with unique character, is paying off.  It is exciting to apply our knowledge of masterful blending to produce interesting blends and we will definitely use the award-winning Petit Verdot as one of the pillar cultivars in the new Bordeaux blend,” says Smuts.
He also applauded the other Paarl vineyards that achieved amazing results winning more than half the gold medals at this year’s SA Young Wine Show.  “Paarl is especially well-suited to producing top quality Chenin Blanc grapes and we are delighted with the gold medals for both our wooded and un-wooded Chenin Blanc,” states Smuts.
According to Smuts the Boland Cellar Chenin Blanc is the flagship cultivar in the extensive Boland wine portfolio.  He ascribes the success of the cultivar to the fact that the winemaking team has access to top quality wines from diverse micro-climates in the Paarl region.  This combined with the Loire style of winemaking using second to fourth fill French oak casks and natural fermentation, results in a light, easy-drinking wooded Chenin. “Working in a region with five different climatic zones, we view blending as one of the most important steps in making fine wine with a distinctive character and real sense of place,” concludes Smuts. 

Boland Cellar also received at the CJP Chemicals Trophy for the Champion Chenin Blanc at the recent Paarl Young Wine Show.   The wooded and unwooded Chenin Blancs were also chosen as class winners along with the wooded Petit Verdot.  Gold medals went to the Chenin Blanc; the Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot/Cabernet Franc blend, the Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz/Pinotage blend and the Shiraz.

Wine lovers should not miss out on the last of the 2012 Reserve Chenin currently on sale at Boland Cellar for R60 and should look out for the 2013 vintage, which will be bottled in December.

For more information on Boland Cellar, visit www.bolandcellar.co.za

CAPTION: Boland Cellar impressed recently by receiving eight gold, nine silver and 16 bronze medals at the 2013 SA Young Wine Awards.  Boland also walked off with two class winner trophies for their unwooded Chenin Blanc and wooded Petit Verdot, which respectively won the Boeresake and Arnold Graue Trophies.  Pictured with the trophies are JD Rossouw,  Head Winemaker Daljosafat (left) and Bernard Smuts, Cellar Master Boland Cellar (right).

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